Page 104 of Dirty Salvation

That jerk-off mind fucking asshole.

She forced her face to show no emotion, a monster gets off on fear, they can taste it in the air like candy and she wouldn't give him that satisfaction. She moved and stood directly in front of him, revealing nothing but the obedient stance he demanded from everyone.

A fucking narcissist would want people to bow to him next.

Zara hated him.

She didn't need to quantify how much.

She simply, irrefutably, loathed every breath the man took, and wanted him so dead.

For someone who had once liked to be prepared for everything, with her ten-year career trajectory, nothing could have pre-warned her for him.

There had been no class in her history of schooling to teach just what happens when a monster makes you his toy.

Lacing her fingers in front of her, her threadbare white tank top gave her no warmth and the sweatpants too big trailed on the floor even though she'd turned them up four times at the hem, she was barefoot as always, shoes would give her freedom, he'd once told her, earn your shoes, he'd smirked, and though she'd done everything those shitheads wanted, she was still without footwear, he had no intention of giving her a pair, either.

The control of a narcissist. Petty little man, she accused only in her own mind, the last free thing she owned.

"I can see the defiance in your eyes, such fire, you hate me, don't you, sweet love?"

She abhorred him calling her that name. There was nothing sweet in the endearment and she'd puke if there was ever a day she was so brainwashed that she wanted the name to become an endearment, gun to her head moment.

Her belly clenched every time he used it, and he used it because she'd once spat in his face and told him her name was Zara. She'd felt the force of his hand that day, it had felt like a shovel, and then as though he'd flipped a switch he'd smiled and told her she shouldn't anger him again.

Zara ignored the name ever since.

"No." she answered because he'd expect one. No one ignored Hades. "Should I bring you a fresh coffee?"

"Obedient little slave wants to please me, does she?" His cocky grin would be called handsome, she supposed, she'd seen women swoon over that smile. Fucking idiots.

Zara shrugged. "I thought you said something was wrong with yours.".

He was up in a second, towering beastly over her, she shrank back, expecting a strike of some kind. Instead, it was so much worse.

So very worse she felt bile charge into her throat. She swallowed and recoiled inside as he cupped the side of her face tenderly, tipping it up to look at him.

Hit me instead, she implored silently. The pain she could deal with.

Not this mindfuck. Never this.

"Why so tense, sweet love? Didn't I relax you enough earlier?"

That same bile she'd swallowed threatened to make a re-trip back to the surface.

You disgust me, she wanted to spit in his face. If she stood at the doorway he used for his shady dealings of guns and drugs and prostitution, she could see the main exit door, freedom was right there and yet Zara had never felt so far from it.

This is my life. She reminded. As if she needed it.

Her days were bleak with no end in sight. She’d passed woe is me One hundred and sixty-four days ago. Kill me, already.

God, she longed for that end now. Three years was too long to endure, she couldn't go on, already she planned to end it and soon. And she knew just how she'd do it.

"I'm not tense." Her voice brittle. Defeated. She'd say anything he wanted at this point, but she wouldn't validate his delusions, let him beat her if he wanted, please, beat me to death.

"Hmmm ... one day, my sweet love, you'll look at me with adoring eyes, If I must continue to fucking break you, I will, piece by piece, you will surrender everything to me until there's nothing left except the shell of a fucktoy and you'll thank me for it, for making you into something better, something that belongs to my club."

So dark was his voice, so true was his threat a giant shudder racked her body.